Travellers’ diarrhea risk for Canadians

The top 15 destinations abroad for Canadian travellers demonstrate a widely varying risk of contracting the most common travel-related illness, Travellers’ Diarrhea (TD), but analysis of the statistics reveal that over 2 million Canadian travellers may have suffered its effects in 2016. Although you might be surprised by the figures, here’s how you can help avoid this illness from contaminated drinking water in foreign destinations.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, figures from Statistics Canada show that the United States was by far the predominant destination for Canadians, with more than twice as many of them travelling there than the next 14 top ranking destinations combined.

Canadian outbound top 15 travel destinations 2016

By utilizing the above statistics it is possible to make estimates for the potential incidence of contracting travellers’ diarrhea, as well as how this might be impacting trips. Using thecommon categorizationof countries into “high”, “intermediate” or “low” risk for acquiring TD, the map and table above can be easily converted into the one below:

Canadian outbound top 15 travel destinations 2016 by country and TD risk

With these destinations and traveller numbers in place it is relatively easy to calculate the potential incidence of travellers’ diarrhea:

Canadian travellers’ risk of TD 2016

It is also possible to calculate the potential impacts of travellers’ diarrhea on travellers:

Canadian travellers’ TD impact 2016

Whether you are going for business, leisure or any other reason, we recommend that for overseas travel destinations you take extra care to stay properly hydrated and avoid drinking water directly from all outdoor sources (e.g. rivers, lakes, streams, wells), municipal water supplies (taps), and suspect ‘fake’ or counterfeit bottled water.

• Save you money while producing up to 350 litres of clean, safe drinking water from contaminated sources, with no waiting time, chemicals or batteries

• Avoid the need to purchase single-use drinking water bottles which end up littering our land and polluting our oceans

Sources.The top 15 destinations for Canadian outbound travellers and the number of visits made in 2016 comes from Statistics Canada.The categorization of countries by TD risk was taken from the Government of Canada, the U.K. NICE(including the percentage of risk by zone), and theU.S. CDC, With regard the overall risk it is noted that the U.S. CDC advises that “Attack rates range from 30% to 70%”. We have used the more conservative U.K. figures of 0% to 7% for low risk, 8% to 20% for intermediate risk, and 20% to 60% noted here, with a median figure of 3.5%, 14% and 40% respectively. For the ‘impact percentages’ we have again utilized figures fromTravelHealthPro(itself referencing Ericsson CD. Travelers’ diarrhea. Epidemiology, prevention, and self-treatment. Infect Dis Clin North Am 1998; 12: 285–303 cited in Al-Abri, S.S. Beeching, N.J. Nye F.J. Traveller’s diarrhoea. Lancet Infect Dis. 2005 Jun; 5 (6):349-60).